Pardidoe

Chronicles of a wandering humanitarian

Colofon

ISBN 9789083393193

NUR 301

1e druk, 2022

© text Abraham de Kock

© cover Thu Nguyen

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Pardidoe

Chronicles of a wandering humanitarian

Abraham de Kock

PREFACE

One of the privileges of living the kind of life I have had, is seeing the way stories, ideas and themes repeat themselves all over the world with people you would think have very little in common. For some reason groups as far flung as Vietnamese fishermen and Honduran farmers, as well as my own family from New Guinea, often share similar stories and folklore in common. All around the world tales are told of encounters with hybrid creatures like mermaids and other half-human half-animal beings, or there are stories of an ancient time when dragons or battling deities ruled the world. However, the story that stuck with me the most, and one you can see repeated again and again, is that of the wandering spirit. In the Jewish tradition this is Cain, doomed to travel the earth forever after killing his brother Able. However, in the tradition I grew up in, this wandering spirit is known as ‘Johanis Pardidoe’, and I tell his story, among a few others, fully in this book.

But before we get to that, I should introduce myself. Bring to mind, if you can, the island of New Guinea, slightly north of Australia and divided neatly in half. Today the eastern side is Papua New Guinea and the west is part of Indonesia. In 1951 I was born on the western side, in the town of Sorong, in the few years after most of what had been Dutch governed Indonesia had gained its independence, but when my home was still under the rule of the far off Netherlands. Life there was very enjoyable, with a spacious home, a garden, a World War II jeep as family car, and picnics on the beach or beside creeks in the surrounding hills. We lived in a middle-class neighbourhood, with lively social gatherings, where there was an endless supply of friends to play with. However, in 1963, a whirlwind of geo-political developments forced Dutch New Guinea to suddenly shrug off the far-away embrace of the Netherlands, as it was annexed by Indonesia. By a quirk of fate, my family was (mostly) out of the country when it happened, but the abruptness meant I was unable to return and say goodbye to my school friends in Manokwari, the place that had been an unforgettable home until that point in my young life. A temporary holiday turned into a permanent stay, and my family had to settle down into an unexpected new life in Europe.

In time, the strange became familiar, and I finished school, then attended university, and fell in love. Things seemed to be on track for me to become an academic or researcher, ensconced in dusty libraries, when I was pointed towards an opening in the United Nations (UN), and everything changed. Since then I have never been in one place for more than a few years, and have lived a life of someone slightly on the outside, looking in, constantly having to grapple with a new language and culture.

The rest of my family, on the other hand, have made Europe their permanent home. My mother passed away several years ago, while my aged father departed only recently. Conversing with him, I have been able to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge, especially regarding his time fighting the Japanese forces during World War II. As strange and unforeseeable as the life I have chosen to lead has been, I believe he, and the rest of my family, are proud of me – building a career with the United Nations and travelling around the world doing humanitarian work. At the same time, the travel bug has not bitten them in the way it has got its teeth into me, and mine is a lifestyle that they do not fully comprehend, being conducted in far-away locations under conditions that are so alien to their own lives.

These days I have left the UN and have settled in Hanoi, Vietnam, joining my wonderful family. I fill my time with all kinds of interesting projects I never thought I would get involved with, from fashion to music, that force me to learn and overcome new challenges. I guess this book is another of those projects. I wrote it because I wanted to give readers a very personal glimpse into the lives and activities of humanitarian workers who travel the world, slightly separate from everyone else. Often we work in difficult, stressful and hostile environments, and I wanted to show how we engage with our counterparts, relate amongst ourselves, how our personal background influences the way we do our job, and how our job impacts our lives as well as the lives of those we’re there to help.

Sometimes, like when I’m cruising on my Honda motorbike along Hanoi’s shady streets like Phan Đình Phùng, I feel comfortable and at peace, like I’ve finally managed to kick the travel bug and settle down. But there are other moments, when the calm and serenity leave me, that I lose my sense of belonging, and my restless soul is awakened. It’s in moments like these that Johanis Pardidoe, the lost soul my mother told me about as I sat on her knee, comes back to mind. I wonder, did I willingly choose the life my mother, and so many other mothers, have warned their children of? I hope not. I have loved getting to know so many other cultures, meeting such a varied range of people, mastering multiple languages. Above all, I hope I have helped people, kept my humanity, and that no-one will frighten their children with the threat of becoming like the restless Bram de Kock!

I have led a wandering life that has involved many hundreds of tearful goodbyes and painful relocations and adjustments. However, I am happy with the choices I have made and accept that they, like the choices everyone makes, have an upside and downside. If I could go back and do it all again, I would try to avoid some regrettable mistakes I’ve made. But, overall I would not hesitate to choose the same career and lead the same lifestyle again.

JOHANIS PARDIDOE

Like all children, I used to love the nights my mother would sit on the edge of my bed and tell me stories to excite, caution, and eventually gently soothe me to sleep. One I particularly enjoyed, but potentially wasn’t totally suitable for such a young child, was a Moluccan legend about a wandering ghost named ‘Johanis Pardidoe’. Just the name tells us this legend could only have originated somewhere like the Moluccan islands.

‘Pardidoe’ comes from the Portuguese (who colonised the islands in the 16th century), meaning lost, but in contemporary Moluccan Malay its connotation is altered a little to mean loitering or walking around with no obvious purpose, and ‘Johanis’ comes from the Dutch name Johannus or Johannes.

Many different versions of the Johanis Pardidoe story exist, probably because in the storytelling traditions, like the Moluccan culture of the pre-television era, such tales were passed on orally rather than written down. Over the generations new elements would be added and others omitted, but the core of the story remained unchanged. For me as a young boy the message was very simple: 'Don't be a naughty boy, or you’ll end up just like Johanis Pardidoe, and you don’t want that.'

Although I can’t recall his exact misdeed in my mother’s telling, it was clear that Johanis Pardidoe must have done something really awful, some sort of mortal sin, so that after his death he received the kind of terrible punishment he deserved. The heavenly powers decided that rather than being allowed to depart from earth after forty days (the usual period of time, in Moluccan culture, a soul was said to spend on earth before ascending to heaven), he would be doomed to wander the earth for eternity. As if this wasn’t enough, as a further punishment he had to hold a glowing cooking pot filled to the brim with burning oil over his head. My mother would tell me in hushed tones that wherever he appeared, drought destroyed crops in the field, the wells ran dry and the population was struck with fear of further chaos and mayhem.

However, one day, in order to contain this disaster and stop it moving on to further villages, a massive prayer meeting was organised, led by several pastors. The people gathered together to ask God to forgive Johanis and allow his troubled soul to finally rest. This collective supplication reached the heavens and, thankfully, God was merciful and granted Johanis’ soul grace in order to leave his earthly existence behind. Sure enough, the drought ended and the wells in the beleaguered villages on Ambon Island were filled again with water.

*

After the Second World War, the Netherlands granted independence to most of what is today Indonesia. However, in order to keep a foothold in the area as well as to exploit the mineral wealth lying under the soil on the mountainous island, the Dutch government kept hold of the Western side of the island of New Guinea, calling it ‘Nederlands Nieuw Guinea’ or Dutch New Guinea.

It was in this Dutch colony that I was born and lived until, in March 1961, I travelled with my family to the Netherlands on an extended holiday. Being employed by the Dutch government, my father Petrus Pieter de Kock was entitled to a Groot Verlof, an extended paid leave of absence, with the right to return to his position when he got back. For my family this was incredibly exciting, a six-month holiday to the fabled and famous ‘motherland’ on the other side of the world that we had been hearing about all our lives. I was thrilled at the idea of finally seeing, with my own eyes, the country I had only known about from teacher’s lessons, rumours and hear-say that floated around the playground, and the occasional photograph of life in Nederland.

We left most of what we had behind – our home, our friends, our little dog Beertje – thinking that we would return in a few months. Even my oldest brother San stayed behind to take care of the house and continue his job at a local retail shop.

Although excited, and the envy of my school friends, by the time we boarded the DC-3 plane at Manokwari’s Rendani airport to fly to Biak Island, where we would catch a connecting long-haul flight with KLM to Amsterdam, I started to feel uneasy and sad, suddenly overwhelmed by the fear of never being able to see my playmates again. But looking around at the happy faces of my parents and siblings reassured me that this is going to be a fantastic adventure and I had no reason to worry. I’d be back in just a few months! Little did I know that we were about to be caught by the tides of history and due to an unforeseeable sequence of geo-political events, our holiday in the Netherlands was about to be transformed into a permanent stay.

It was at just this time that the escalating tensions between the Netherlands and Indonesia regarding the future of Dutch New Guinea almost erupted into a catastrophic clash, potentially dragging in Soviet and NATO forces.

In 1962 the Cold War was gathering to its peak and Indonesia had allied itself with the Soviet Union. The Dutch wanted their old colony to be an independent nation, but Indonesia, under President Sukarno, claimed Dutch New Guinea as a rightful part of their territory. Tensions rose and the conflict had the capacity to drag both the Soviets and NATO powers into it as, under NATO’s mutual defence treaty, an attack on one member, in this case the Netherlands, would be considered as an attack on all. This raised the spectre of an international nuclear confrontation between the Great Powers over a remote and sparsely populated island on the edge of the Pacific.

At the time, Dutch armed forces in New Guinea significantly outgunned anything the Indonesians could bring to a potential conflict, with almost 5,000 soldiers, a small but versatile fleet, a squadron of Lockheed Neptune planes and 24 Hawker-Hunter jet fighters, as well as cutting edge anti-aircraft defence. A skirmish between the Indonesian and Dutch navies in early 1962 underscored the inexperience and lack of readiness of the Indonesian forces. Three Indonesian torpedo boats carrying 150 soldiers were intercepted by the Dutch navy on their way to infiltrate, conduct sabotage and agitate the local population. All three vessels were easily destroyed, damaged or run aground on a reef. This failure, just outside their home waters, was deeply embarrassing for Indonesia, and led to the subsequent involvement of Cold War adversaries the Soviet Union and USA.

In an attempt to level the playing field, Indonesia requested that the Soviet Union send Tupolev bombers, submarines and some 3,000 soldiers to help. Upon arrival, the Soviet soldiers changed into Indonesian uniforms and were issued identity papers stating that they were volunteers. Unknown to the Dutch, six Russian submarines, with ‘volunteer’ crew members wearing Indonesian uniforms, were deployed in the disputed waters around Dutch New Guinea. In an interview published almost 40 years later, Gennadi Melkow, commander of one of the ‘volunteer’ submarines, confirmed that his vessel had been lurking outside the bay of Manokwari, waiting for the order to destroy fuel tanks and launch its torpedoes at the Dutch navy frigate Hr. Ms. Evertsen, which was anchored in the bay unaware.

Luckily for everyone the order never came, and a last-minute political settlement was brokered by the US, which allowed the Soviets to abort their attack, and it soon became clear that Papuan independence, set in motion in a hurried and hasty manner by the Dutch government, creating an elected Papuan Parliament and a Papuan defence force (Papoea Vrijwilligers Korps), would become the sacrificial lamb for peace in the area. In 1969, under the United Nations auspices a highly flawed referendum, the so-called ‘Act of Free Choice’, was conducted, which confirmed the foregone outcome of Dutch New Guinea being handed over to Indonesia. For us, and all of those who had chosen to align themselves with the Dutch rulers and had been prepared to live in an independent New Guinea (rather than a New Guinea that was part of Indonesia), it meant bidding a totally unprepared farewell to the comfortable way of life we had enjoyed in the last bastion of Dutch colonial rule in Asia. We were abruptly forced to settle into a new society in the Netherlands, which was on some level familiar but in many ways stood in stark contrast with the laid-back existence we had enjoyed under the tropical sun.

It is estimated that in the fifteen years following 1945 approximately 300,000 Dutch citizens were ‘repatriated’, from the former Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. For the vast majority of them, this ‘repatriation’ meant their first trip to Europe and their first time seeing the ‘homeland’ they’d heard so much about. For these newcomers the Netherlands had been like the Lost City of Z, a mystical place far away, where everything was better, but was almost impossible to attain.

In the 1960s a further 14,000 people emigrated to the Netherlands. Like the earlier wave most of this group were well versed in the Dutch language, and compared to the more recent influx of migrants from countries with no historical or cultural connection with the Netherlands, our assimilation and social integration took place relatively smoothly.

*

When I enrolled in a Dutch primary school (School met de Bijbel) in 1961, the teaching staff made some unwarranted assumptions regarding the quality of my education in New Guinea and chose to place me in a class one grade lower than at my former school. To my young self this downgrading was a quiet humiliation as well as an unnerving introduction to the Dutch education system. Fortunately, the teachers were able to overcome their prejudices and they recognised their faulty assessment fairly quickly, returning me to the fourth grade, where I belonged.

My father, on the other hand, had steeper hills to climb. When it became clear that returning was not an option, he was offered a position within the Naval Department of the Ministry of Defence at a much lower level of seniority than his previous government job. Inevitably this led to some tension and unhappiness, and after a conflict with a superior, he was reassigned to a better post at a deserving pay scale within the Department of Public Works, where he continued to work until his retirement at the fairly young age of 58.

Ever the contrarian, my father refused to address a senior colleague at the Naval Department by his given army rank of kolonel, and instead used the term meneer (mister). The colonel did not serve active combat duty during the war, and my father felt this was sufficient reason to not respect his formal rank. For his family’s sake, he was willing to endure the insult of a demotion and lower pay but kowtowing to the whims of a fair weather soldier was a bridge too far.

Although Dutch New Guinea was always officially considered part of the Netherlands, there was obviously a large cultural gap between life on a tropical island beside the Pacific and a small European country like the Netherlands. So, as one would expect, my father had a difficult time adjusting to the work-life and culture in our newly adopted homeland. In addition to the culture shock of moving to Europe he was also struggling to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which had come upon him in the aftermath of World War II. He had been able to keep on top of it while still in New Guinea, but the stress of the unexpected move with his family to the other side of the world was enough to bring it back to the fore.

The Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies in 1942, taking the islands with relative ease. However, my father belonged to the sole KNIL (Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger, Royal Dutch Indies Army) unit that did not surrender, waging a guerrilla war against the Japanese occupiers, vastly superior both in terms of numbers and materiel, for the entire war until eventually making contact with liberating Allied Forces in 1945.

On Sunday 12 April 1942, my father was stationed at the KNIL garrison at Manokwari when it was attacked by around 4.000 Japanese invaders. Out of a garrison of 125 troops, only 70 managed to escape the initial onslaught. These survivors retreated to the surrounding jungle where, in anticipation of the hostilities, supplies had been pre-positioned. In the following days and months many of the survivors were killed in skirmishes with the enemy, as well as dying of hunger, and the inevitable diseases and infections picked up when living rough in the jungle. Their commanding officer was beheaded after his capture and only 16 men were able to survive the 30-month guerrilla war, one of whom was my father.

When fighting in the jungle, in addition to fears about his own well-being, my father had to worry about the well-being of his fiancé, Greet Wattimena, and her family, who he had left behind in Manokwari and would most likely be harassed by the Japanese once they became aware of the link to the KNIL jungle fighters. Unknown to him, Greet was soon taken captive and placed in an internment camp due to their relationship. Together with another member of the surviving guerrilla unit, barely one week after they made contact with allied forces, my father volunteered to scout the camp which held some 120 to 130 prisoners, being dropped behind enemy lines to collect valuable information that would guide the allied liberators when they attacked. However, for Greet the allied liberation did not come quickly enough, and she died of starvation just a short while before her internment camp was liberated. Fate has its own ways. One of my father’s dearest wishes was an official recognition by the Dutch government of its many subjects who perished in the jungle and are buried in forgotten, unmarked shallow graves. A long overdue tribute to these forgotten, nameless victims.

Throughout the 30-month long campaign, in order to underscore their unwavering loyalty to the Netherlands, the members of my father’s platoon carried a Dutch flag with them and when the war was over, they inscribed their names on it and sent it to the Dutch Queen. For their heroic resistance, each member of the brave KNIL unit received military honours and a handwritten letter of appreciation from Queen Wilhelmina. Their flag is now kept at Bronbeek (Arnhem), a museum of Dutch colonial history and a retirement home to army veterans.

Acting as a public spokesperson for his brothers in arms, writing about his wartime experience in a well-received book and being a respected and decorated army veteran greatly contributed to my father’s healing process, and, in time, he learned how to control the flashbacks and anxieties caused by the horrific events that he and his comrades experienced during their armed struggle against the Japanese invaders. He reached 103 years old and passed away as the final edits to this book were being completed, on the 6th of December 2021. He was buried with military honours.

Following his wishes, the ‘Last Post’ was played at his funeral and was dedicated to his comrades and the nameless victims buried in the jungle of New Guinea.

*

In my adopted Vietnam, the fifteenth day in the seventh lunar month of the lunar calendar is Tết Trung Nguyên, the festival of the Hungry Ghosts. On this day, the gates of hell are opened, and the condemned spirits are set free to roam the world of the living. In search of food, they visit the homes of relatives who prepare offerings and pray for their absolution. However, ghosts without any relatives, or those who were not given a proper burial, will roam around aimlessly and angrily, bringing bad luck to anyone unlucky enough to cross their path.

It is not just the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month that is dangerous, the fear that the entire month brings with it a high risk of misfortune, is taken very seriously. Weddings are postponed, no shop or business will open its doors for the first time, building projects are delayed, moving to a new home is put on hold, the start of a new job is deferred and travel is replanned. In the Buddhist tradition, harm to any living being carries bad karma, therefore, the hungry ghosts are offered only vegetarian food, including rice porridge, corn, sweet potatoes, nuts, and fruits, which are left on altars in front of people’s houses. It’s believed that feeding these condemned spirits anything with meat would incite them to commit further evil deeds, diminishing any hope for purification.

During the American War, the US Army tried to weaken the morale of the enemy through ‘Operation Wandering Soul’, a PSYOP (Psychological Operations) campaign which preyed on this Vietnamese fear of souls that have not been properly buried, aimlessly wandering the earth in pain. A recorded tape (known as ‘Ghost Tape Number Ten’) with eerie sounds and altered voices, accompanied by Buddhist funeral music, was played on loudspeakers mounted outside US bases, supposedly broadcasting messages from fallen Việt Cộng soldiers, urging the living to return home. Both at the time, and after many people have questioned whether this psychological warfare technique actually worked. By aping ancient cultural beliefs in such an obvious and ham-fisted way (at times playing the tape from Huey helicopters hovering overhead), the US Army might have even emboldened the resolve and fighting spirit of their adversaries, rather than sap it.

Working for the United Nations, sent from posting to posting every few years, I led a kind of wandering life. At least I had the love and consolation of my wife Fien, and later on also with our children, to make the constant movement easier. Unlike a wandering spirit, it did not feel like I had to atone for a sin I had committed. Although it could be tough, it was also a deeply enriching experience that opened wider horizons in our minds, filled our hearts with joyous friendships and created lasting memories. Always on the move, the rolling stones that were our lives were unable to grow any moss, but we were also unable to set down roots anywhere. My brothers, sisters and friends, who have opted for a more sedentary life in the Netherlands, continue to hang out with former classmates and never run the risk of missing out on another high school reunion. They never have to worry about the 2:30 am phone call, requiring a last-minute flight across continents in order to accompany a loved one to his or her final resting place. Or the utter frustration, when asked 'What are you doing at the moment?', that I cannot fully share and express my experiences in those distant countries.

Their lives are too distant, too separated from mine, and they seem caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of pleasantly quiet European routines. My life, trying to feed people in far off and poorly understood countries ('Which one is Manali again? Is that the one south of Mexico?'), is simply too foreign to them, in every sense of the word, and they are often unable to show empathy for the realities I encounter in my life and work on distant shores. At the same time, I quietly appreciate, and am perhaps a little envious of all those everyday virtues that are taken for granted in the spoiled and over-privileged West. Where I’m working, vast swathes of humanity are deprived of clean drinking water; adequately stocked shops and markets; a functioning and fairly accountable government, and freedom of speech.

I take comfort in the knowledge that even though the path I have chosen to walk is tough, I am fortunate to lead a rich life, full of people from completely different cultures who offer a different perspective on the same world around us. Even the most adventurous globetrotters can only dream of the places I have visited and, on top of everything else, I was being paid a generous salary for this privilege.

However, as with all deals we make in life, there is also a downside, a price to pay for living as a professional wanderer. When my mother was admitted to hospital with a cerebral infarction, I arrived in the Netherlands too late to talk to her she had already entered a deep coma and died shortly after my arrival, without regaining consciousness. For Fien I was often the absent husband and for my children, their long-distance father. I missed out on seeing my children grow up, depriving both them and myself of the daily dose of loving attention young children so deserve from a parent.

It’s tempting but unfair to put the blame of my shortcomings as a father on my own upbringing. I was brought up very much in the old-fashioned way, my father raising me in a stern and distant fashion, not shying away from physical punishment, when I caused any mischief. As uncomfortable as the memories now seem, in the post-war 1950s, that’s just how things were done, with fathers setting strict boundaries for their offspring, enforced with corporal punishment if they are overstepped. As manifested in later years, having been directly exposed to the horrors of war, he was also struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. For the most part, his myriad anxieties stayed beneath the surface, as he was building his career, re-joining the colonial administration, and being the sole provider of a growing family. Whatever I missed in terms of fatherly affection, was generously compensated by the endless love that my mother showered on me, her golden boy.

Although I had no idea when I left on my first UN posting, maybe a difficult and fractured family life is simply part of the deal when you choose a career involving long stints away from home in demanding situations. And yet, there seem to be others who manage to keep their family life intact despite facing similar challenges. So, I believe that I should reproach myself for my shortcomings, both as a husband and a father. However, I am grateful that, largely attributed to Fien’s strong will and steadfast devotion, our children have been able to grow up so well, becoming strong headed adults with a well-balanced personality and a no-nonsense work attitude.

After another long stay abroad, I was returning to my family in the Netherlands. Rosanna, who was nine years old at the time, gave me a self-made gift, a mosaic of a sad elephant with a big tear on its right cheek, made of cut pieces of coloured foam plastic. In it she wrote: 'for Pops, I miss you. Love Rosanna. You're the best.' This gift became a precious talisman, and has travelled with me everywhere, tucked away between my travel documents. It brings me both sadness and joy, reminding me of how much I love and, at the same time, miss my children. Their mother’s strength and determination can easily be seen in the independent characters of both Rafael and Rosanna. I can only hope that people will also notice some traits in them that reflect me.

*

The postings of humanitarian workers around the world, where impoverished people are dependent on Western generosity due to emergencies created by man or nature, are always temporary. In the stress and heat of difficult foreign situations close friendships are often forged and despite the transient nature of their presence, sometimes these friendships are lifelong. The fleeting circumstances make some people shockingly candid. Countless times I have listened to the sad life story of someone I hardly knew, in intimate, unflattering detail. Often their story concerned a lover or partner, and things that had gone wrong along the way where one ended up hurting the other. We were each other's priest and counsellor, a private helpline, ready to offer sympathy, we heard each other’s confession, full of empathy, willing to absolve the sins of our newfound soulmate without hesitation.

I spent most of my time at the UN with the World Food Programme (WFP), but they were not my only employer there. From 1980 to 1984 I worked for the Department of Technical Cooperation for Development (UN-DTCD) in Honduras and then Malawi. I enjoyed my work with the UN-DTCD, but anyone who knew the organisation in the early eighties, could not have failed to notice the turmoil and low morale, it was so bad that its own staff referred to it as the Department of Total Chaos and Disaster. However, right from the start of my time with the WFP, I was both surprised and impressed at the family-like esprit de corps, and the sense of purpose and infectious can-do mentality shared among its employees.

In the heat and pressure of present, or merely imminent, chaos, that the humanitarian community lives in, a real sense of togetherness and close bonds are forged. Settled in specially allocated residential compounds, often islands of peace in seas of destitution, with access to items and support systems far out of reach of the poverty plagued indigenous people around us, we were dependent on each other. In addition to the wealth of possessions, we had rich social lives with recreational centres where alcohol was consumed in happy abundance, and a customary barbecue was held every Friday evening. These laid-back social spaces and events offered the opportunity to unwind and recharge emotional batteries that may run low, because of the difficult demands of humanitarian relief work.

One of the benefits of these spaces was to allow somewhere for networking, where people could build informal bonds that would benefit formal collaborations. Some among us, especially my youthful colleagues, had a ‘ClubMed’ mentality, where the artificial bubble that had been created around us allowed them to live out their first world fantasies with a third world backdrop. It seemed as though their social lives of drinking in bars every evening, picnics, and countless receptions and parties had superseded their work as the main reason for being in the country. For some, managing the delivery of humanitarian aid was nothing more than a distraction, and the hefty salary at the end of the month was welcomed as a bonus. Wandering around the world, they could imagine themselves as a modern version of Odysseus, their lives threatened by ruthless monstrosities, their will tested by seductive sirens.

Sex was a sedative, a recreational drug; it offered momentary relief, no commitment expected. It gave you the opportunity to create a space where the strange environment in which you had ended up was just a setting to what was really important. Of course, there is really nothing new under the sun, strangers abroad have always looked for strings-free recreational sex to distract themselves from what’s going on. Sex-workers famously followed General ‘Fighting Joe’ Hooker’s army around the American Civil War (where we get the term ‘hooker’ from); the late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed the introduction and rise across Southeast Asia of Karyuki-san (Miss Gone Abroad – Japanese women from impoverished families who were lured and forced into prostitution, working in brothels of bustling cities like Singapore, Penang, Batavia/Jakarta, Bangkok, Saigon, Haiphong and Hanoi). During the American War a thriving sex industry was established around GIs in Saigon and Bangkok. The US military’s long history with prostitution continues these days in countries which host American army bases, such as South Korea and the Philippines.

More recently, when super typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013, it destroyed homes, jobs, and families. In its aftermath, huge numbers of aid workers descended on the devastated town of Tacloban, changing the social lives of many of its habitants dramatically. Equipped with their mobile phones and favourite hook-up apps, local members of Tacloban’s LGBT community found themselves suddenly and happily overwhelmed by newfound liberties, when interacting with like-minded foreign humanitarians who were seeking distraction. What became known as ‘Disaster Dating’ allowed them to express their sexuality more openly and deliberately than before. For the suddenly liberated gay men and women in Tacloban, typhoon Haiyan was truly a wind of change.

Sadly, sexual misconduct has long been a problem in the United Nations, even if the first case was not brought before a tribunal until 1991. Victims of sexual misconduct internal to the UN, the majority of whom are women, describe the process of going through the UN’s in-house justice system as a painful and frustrating ordeal. Well intentioned reforms were introduced, but they did little to tackle the fundamental shortcoming, the inability of the UN to judge and properly discipline itself. The public exposure of recent cases of sexual misconduct across several UN agencies (WHO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UN-AIDS, WFP, among others) underline the need to put a system in place that will ensure a safer mission environment – with safety nets in place for vulnerable employees, and gives plaintiffs the right to be heard and receive appropriate support.

Within WFP we have mistakenly downplayed this abusive behaviour among our midst for too long. I salute the persistence and bravery of Kirstie Campbell, a former WFP colleague, who recently, thanks to the lifting of six-month statute of limitations, was able to denounce a senior staff member. In 2010, both were deployed in Pakistan, overseeing the delivery of food aid to victims of disastrous floods. As is typical of these situations, Kirstie was working on a short-term contract, rendering her vulnerable to the unwanted advances of her colleague with managerial authority, a former British Royal Marine, who promised a more rewarding fixed-term contract, with better terms and conditions of employment, in return for sex. At first, she informed her immediate supervisor, but with no result. Kirstie then contacted a WFP counsellor, who confided to her that he could not do anything since the accused was his boss. At long last, her complaint is now finally being looked into, and pending the outcome of an internal investigation the senior staff member has been suspended. Perhaps the relief agencies could take a cue from the services provided by the ‘Donut Dollies’, American women who volunteered to offer momentarily relief to GIs on the frontline during World War II, and also in Vietnam. Risking their lives, they were flown into combat zones, spending some time with battle weary soldiers, telling stories, playing word games, or just sharing a meal and a conversation. Their name is derived from the assertion that some of the ladies prepared doughnuts while visiting the troops in World War II. Whatever they did when visiting, the main beneficial effect was to offer the horror-struck soldiers some much needed respite, a fleeting sensation of being ‘home’. There were 3 casualties among the more than 600 Donut Dollies who served in Vietnam.

*

North Korea is a poverty-stricken country, perpetually on the edge of starvation, and in the summer of 2002, I was travelling to the particularly deprived north-east corner, in order to check up on our food delivery activities in the heart of North Korea’s rust belt. The north-east was once prosperous, with a thriving manufacturing sector, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, it took practically the only market for North Korean consumer goods with it, leaving an area of grinding poverty. Today it is little more than an abandoned landscape, littered with the carcasses of rusty, deserted factories and high levels of childhood malnutrition.

Foreigners are only reluctantly allowed in the capital Pyongyang, and almost none are allowed to see other parts of the country, so very limited information is available about the living conditions in the rest of the country. Therefore, WFP staff travelling out of the main office in Pyongyang, or any of our five suboffices, act as the eyes and ears of the international community. New developments observed are shared at the weekly interagency meetings that are also attended by representatives of diplomatic missions, hosted and chaired by the WFP.

Making our way through a downpour, along a broken road, filled with potholes and caked in thick mud, we passed an army vehicle that had managed to skid off the muddy road and into a soaked paddy field, burying its wheels deep in the mud. Surrounding the destitute looking jeep was a group of muddy farmers and soldiers who had clearly tried in vain to pull the heavy Russian UAZ469 jeep out of the mud without a rope or pulley, just using their physical strength. Having passed, on an impulse, I leant across to my interpreter and said:

'Tell the driver to return and let’s see if we can help.'

Surprised, he asked: 'Are you sure?'

For the North Korean government, having foreign aid workers in their country distributing food they are unable to provide themselves, is an abject humiliation. Because of this embarrassment we were constantly surrounded by a web of rules, both official and unofficial, in order to minimise the dishonour. One of the many unofficial rules we were supposed to follow dictated that foreign aid workers should not get involved in local affairs such as this (presumably because it necessitated spending too much time shoulder-to-shoulder with the local population), and especially so when the military was involved.

'It's okay with me,' I replied.

After a brief conversation between driver and interpreter we made a quick U-turn and headed back to the stranded vehicle. After all, the UN was here to help people and surely this should be straight forward? What had not worked with manpower alone could be easily and quickly done with the help of a tow rope and the horsepower of our beefy Land Cruiser.